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Hare Soup

A stew of hare, beef, ham or bacon, onions, sweet herbs, boiled in water and seasoned with soy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Hare Soup

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hare Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and cut the hare into pieces.

  2. Place the hare at the bottom of a pan.

  3. Add the beef, ham or bacon, onions, and sweet herbs.

Stew and strain

  1. Pour in the boiling water and let it stew until the meat is tender.

  2. Strain the soup and remove the fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Reboil the soup and add the soy sauce.

  2. Serve with force-meat balls if desired.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Ham + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ham + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,314 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hare (in the method)
Provides the main meat flavour and body of the soup.
Lean beef
Adds further meat flavour and gelatin-rich body as it simmers.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, smoky richness to the broth.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock.
Soy sauce or harvey's sauce
Adds savoury, umami depth and dark colour to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Remove the fat after straining. Fat rises and collects on the surface of a stewed broth, and leaving it in makes the soup greasy and heavy on the palate. Skimming after straining, while the liquid is hot, removes most of it cleanly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, sauce):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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